Top Benefits of Nitric Oxide, and How to Increase

Fully pumped muscles, lower blood pressure, decreased muscle soreness and help for erectile dysfunction are all benefits of nitric oxide in the human body. Hang with us as we take a look at the 3 best pathways to boost nitric oxide levels!

Nitric Oxide is a naturally occurring gas produced in almost every type of cell in the human body. It is a vasodilator, meaning it relaxes the inner muscles in blood vessels allowing them to widen, improving blood flow and lowering blood pressure. There are three different pathways that are best known for increasing nitric oxide. They all have unique properties and benefits.

Before we look at how to boost our nitric oxide levels let's take a closer look at some of its benefits in the human body.

Benefits of Nitric Oxide:

1. Boost Exercise Performance:

The best known effect of nitric oxide on the human body is the relaxing and widening of blood vessels, this helps deliver oxygen and nutrients to muscles during exercise. This enhances exercise performance by delivering your muscles what they need to keep performing at their best. This widening and relaxing of blood vessels is also the reason nitric oxide is well known for giving you a great “pump”. Nitric oxide literally fills your muscles with blood, due to the veins allowing a higher blood flow, creating the full pumped look and feel!

   2. Lowers Blood Pressure:

As we know nitric oxide relaxes and widens blood vessels. This lowers blood pressure and reduces the negative effects of high blood pressure such as heart and liver disease. High blood pressure is caused when the force of your blood pushing against the walls of your arteries is too high. As veins widen it reduces blood pressure the same way that adding an additional lane to a busy street reduces traffic congestion.

   3. May Decrease Muscle Soreness:

Nitric oxide is mainly known for providing a pump and performance during your workouts. There is also evidence that it helps decrease soreness after a workout as well. Because nitric oxide allows better blood flow you not only get more oxygen and nutrients delivered to your muscles but also help clearing waste products related to muscle fatigue such as lactate and ammonia. By clearing those products from your muscles soreness is greatly reduced and recovery becomes much quicker.

   4. Help Treat Erectile Dysfunction:

In order to achieve and maintain an erection nitric oxide is needed as it relaxes the muscles in the penis that allows blood chambers to fill and the penis become hard. Many studies have found that using nitric oxide increasing supplements are effective for helping men suffering from erectile dysfunction. It is not as effective as prescription drugs but is very safe and well tolerated.

How to Increase Nitric Oxide:

Now that we have a better understanding of nitric oxide and the benefits it can provide we need to look at the different pathways to boosting nitric oxide levels. There are three main ways to increase nitric oxide through supplementation. For a long time the arginine/citrulline pathway was the only known pathway. However in recent years nitrates, and S7 have been proven as different pathways to nitric oxide with their own individual benefits.

1. Arginine/Citrulline Pathway

This is the most well known pathway to increase nitric oxide. The amino acid arginine is directly converted to nitric oxide in the bloodstream. Citrulline is converted into arginine and then into nitric oxide. While this makes it seem like arginine is the superior nitric oxide booster it doesn’t work out that way. It appears that when taken as a supplement arginine is largely broken down before reaching the bloodstream where it can convert to nitric oxide. Arginine is also used by many other functions in the body so not all of it will go to producing nitric oxide. While arginine does convert more directly to nitric oxide, citrulline is actually the better nitric oxide booster of the two because of this. Citrulline also does not cause gastrointestinal distress in large doses, arginine does for some people. For these reasons citrulline is the preferred supplement for this pathway.

   2. Nitrates:

Nitrates are naturally occurring compounds found in many vegetables. Nitrates are converted and stored in the blood as nitrite. In times of low blood oxygen nitrite converts into nitric oxide. This pathway is completely different to the arginine pathway discussed earlier. In fact it is very complimentary, because the arginine synthesis pathway requires oxygen, and slows down in times of low oxygen (such as intense cardiovascular exercise). As nitrate synthesis does not require oxygen it is an ideal complement to the arginine synthesis pathway, or a great standalone product particularly for endurance athletes. Nitrate levels can be increased by using a beetroot supplement or by eating a diet with lots of food high in nitrates such as beets, spinach, kale, and arugula.

   3. S-7

The human body naturally produces nitric oxide on its own, using specific supplements can increase the body's nitric oxide production. S7 is a supplement created using 7 plant based ingredients that is clinically proven to raise nitric oxide up to 230% in humans! S7 is made up of a blend of green coffee bean, green tea, turmeric extract, tart cherry, blueberry, broccoli, and kale. S7 works by inhibiting production of cellular reactive oxygen species, leading to a 230% increase in nitric oxide.

Side Effects:

-In general all of the supplements discussed in this article rarely produce any side effects if taken at appropriate dosage. If consumed in excess some people may experience diarrhea or nausea from arginine. Excessive consumption of beetroot may also cause urine and stool to turn a dark red color, but this is not harmful.

-If you are prone to hypotension (low blood pressure) you should consult your physician before using a Nitric Oxide boosting supplement as it may lead to lightheadedness or dizziness.

Nitric Oxide and Stimulants:

-An important note: Taking high doses of stimulants is known to constrict blood vessels, reducing blood flow and elevating blood pressure. Increasing your Nitric Oxide levels can help combat this. It is important to note that stimulants work directly in opposition to nitric oxide. Where nitric oxide relaxes and widens blood vessels, stimulants constrict them. You can’t take enough nitric oxide supplements to completely offset the vascular constriction stimulant cause, so if your goal is getting a really big pump, or very high blood flow stick to a low or no stimulant pre-workout supplement.

Nitric oxide is clearly an important molecule for athletic performance. With many health and performance enhancing properties there's no wonder nitric oxide boosting products are so popular. There are three well known and established ways to naturally boost nitric oxide levels all working in different ways to help you be your best!